


seeking out magnetic north (and other ways to steer yourself home)

by freudiancascade



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Drama, I (like most of this fandom) am choosing to ignore key moments in Final Resting Place, M/M, ballet dancer Peter, bittersweet all the way down, dance dad mag, grappling with physical and emotional scars, juno didn't sign up for this shit, jupeter, trigger warning for canon childhood abuse/trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudiancascade/pseuds/freudiancascade
Summary: Meeting the parents is never a fun time -- that's just simple fact. Any PI worth their salt in Hyperion City has dozens of tales about in-laws and bloodshed. Some might have even happened to other people.But when Juno regains consciousness in a warehouse on the outskirts of town, tied to a chair and with a very-not-dead Mag peering at him like he's an especially interesting bug, his first thought is that Nureyev really outdid himself with this one.His second thought is that this is going to get messy.





	seeking out magnetic north (and other ways to steer yourself home)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @mrslovelace for letting me screech at her inbox about family and trauma and reconciliation, and for screeching back in return. Lots of love to @intrikate88 and @mrslovelace for the betas, too!
> 
> Trigger warning on this one, for dealing with childhood abuse and trauma of the canon variety.

\--x--

_Freeze frame. Rewind._

_A small but prestigious ballet company on the highest peak of Miothea was putting on an exhibition, its dancers dripping with fine jewels._

_They really should have known better._

_A man sat in the audience, his face hidden behind a thick beard and his eyes shrouded behind thick glasses. His hand rested on his heart, pressing firm against an old wound that had never healed entirely right. The music was familiar, an old blanket of sound that swept him back years. He watched, unblinkingly, his gaze focused on one dancer in particular._

_When the explosions started, he was the only member of the audience not to flinch. Instead, he watched. He'd hoped for better, but expected exactly this._

_The dancer pirouetted backwards as the chandelier crashed to the stage, choreography he had clearly planned and practiced, and in the bloom of light he was silhouetted against the thick curtains. A rustle of fabric, the chaos of the theatre, a sharp grin shining bright in the gloom as he waited patiently with an arm thrown above his head, and then the room plunged into darkness as the music reached crescendo._

_Mag settled back in his seat, knowing in his gut that he was already too late. By the time the backup generator set the emergency lights glowing along the velvet floor, Peter Nureyev had already taken what he came for and vanished -- again -- into thin air._

\--x--

     "Detective Steel? Juno, is it? Easy, now. Don't struggle, you'll only hurt yourself."

     Juno played dead a moment longer, gaining his bearings as the voice floated down to where his consciousness was busy uncurling itself like a sleepy cat. The man's voice echoed -- a large space, then. Distant sound of dripping water, smell of oil, old wood, musty, faint smoke, bitter smog, rubber soles of shoes pacing concrete and sheet metal -- outskirts of town, some kind of warehouse. Okay. Juno waited until the footsteps circling his chair were in front and then tugged gently at the wrists bound behind his back, hand tracing up to the cuffs. Good, he could handle that model of cuff, given a distraction to work with. The pounding in his head was a little more alarming, but he could feel all his limbs and seemed to be thinking clearly enough, so that was probably fine. A minor concussion never hurt anybody too bad.

     All things considered, he'd woken up in much worse places, and in much more imminent trouble.

     Finally Juno cracked his eye open. Feigned a groan, kept his head tilted down. Did his best to look more hurt than he was as he swept his gaze slowly upwards to evaluate his captor.

     Oh, right. Shit.  _That_ was what he'd been forgetting about.

     "Still not the worst _meet the parents_ I've ever had," he slurred, letting his head tip upwards to meet Mag's stare. "Points for effort, though." 

     "In your line of work, I'm not surprised. Still, I am genuinely sorry about this, Juno," the man replied, offering a bottle of filtered water with a straw sticking out of it. "I'd have left you out of this if there was any other way." Rotated the straw with a thumb until it touched Juno's lips.

     "Oh, well, in _that_ case, all's forgiven," Juno said, jerking backwards from the straw with a scowl. "Seriously, don't touch me."

     "Are the handcuffs too tight? They're just a formality, I can fix that if you need. And I can give you something for your head, that can't be a pleasant headache you're nursing right now."

     "No, no, it's definitely the kind of headache I'd want to take to dinner and a movie," he shot back.

     Mag frowned. "You're one hell of a detective, you know. I'm really curious: how did you recognise me on sight?"

     "Guess I'm a fucking mind reader," the detective said flatly, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Next question?"

     The next question never came. Outside, something blasted loud enough to shake the walls. The windows lit up with a bright yellow light, casting garish shadows around the room, and a loud siren blared. Something crashed, something shattered, and smoke began pouring into the warehouse, swirling up around their ankles.

     "Oh, sorry," Juno said blithely, casting a sideways glance at the window. The siren gave way to the honking of an impatient car horn, and he snorted. "This was fun, but it's past my curfew and my ride's here."

     Then Juno lunged sideways out of the chair, hitting the concrete with his freed hands and shoving himself onto his back. He twisted his arms up in front of him, the handcuffs dangling uselessly from his right wrist, and deflected Mag's lunge with knees drawn up to his chest. Boots shoved out in the direction of the older man's gut. Made contact, kicked hard, rolled to the side, head reeling, tasting blood, _fuck_. Staggered to his feet and dove forwards into the cover of the smoke. The pattern of the lights along the wall, the flashes -- he knew exactly where he was going, and navigated by memory around the space. Vaulted over a wooden crate, ducked down, scrambled back.

     Turned, and looked up.

     Peter Nureyev cut a resplendent figure in the smoke, knife and teeth both glinting in the low light, dinner jacket tailored sharply, eyes burning with an emotion Juno couldn't quite identify. The thief's gaze flicked to the detective and there, another shift, worry scrawled itself briefly across his face, and then Nureyev regained composure with a lifted eyebrow -- _are you hurt?_

     Juno shook his head a fraction -- _I'm fine_. With a nod, Peter hefted a gun and Juno dove to his feet to catch it; the weapon pressed into his palm smoothly, other hand coming up to steady it, handcuffs jingling. Flicked the setting away from  _stun_ in the same motion,practiced and clean. Juno stepped behind Peter and pivoted on his leading leg to face back in the direction he'd come from, while Peter shifted slightly to give the detective a clear sightline over his shoulder while simultaneously gesturing to _hold fire_. The whole dance took approximately two seconds and ended with them both standing to face Mag, Peter physically in front of Juno with his eyes fixed on the older man, Juno’s gun sighted on Mag’s head.

     Hold fire. Fair enough. Family was messy. Juno would let Nureyev call this shot. He could taste the tension in the air, harder to breathe through than any amount of grenade smoke.

      _Well_ , _shit. That's the easy part over, then_.

\--x--

     Two decades ago, Peter Nureyev threatened to blow an entire city out of the sky and vanished drenched with the blood of the man who raised him. He was brilliant and he was desperate and he had been trained very well, and that was a terrifying combination. He threw himself into the arms of the galaxy and reinvented himself a hundred times over, carving new lives out in the embrace of distant worlds. He stole what he could and he killed when he had to, and he never slowed down and he never looked back.

     And Mag had been searching for him ever since. 

     When rumours began swirling, whispers from the same broken city on the same red planet time and time again, Mag investigated carefully. Found security feeds, an arrest record (and an immediate dramatic escape), receipts and footprints and the name of a detective tied to all of it, again and again and again. And so he made a plan.

     Juno Steel had looked more resigned than Mag expected, as though being cornered in a black alleyway with a knife to his back was just another Thursday. But then he twisted and fought back, like scrapping in the darkness for survival was second nature, too. His remaining eye widened with recognition in the middle of the ambush and after that he pulled his punches, Mag was sure of it. 

     That was interesting. 

     Still, Mag fully expected this to be a waste of everybody's time. He'd been prepared to knock Juno Steel upside the head again in a couple hours, administer a mild short-term amnesiac, and leave him somewhere warm and clean to sleep it off. 

     Peter Nureyev was a genius by all measures. He always had been, even as a bright-eyed child slicing survival out of the cold streets. More than that: he was wired to survive, and falling in love was the single biggest tactical error a person could make. For him to have just blundered right into the biggest mistake in the book seemed too easy.

     But then, Juno Steel had murmured Peter's name when he regained consciousness. Only once, quiet and soft, a caress of a whisper -- but the full name, the real one, the one Nureyev had left behind on that blood-stained floor like just another dead body. And so Mag had upwardly revised that chance of success. Because of course, too, that had always been Pete. 

     He'd have been the perfect thief and revolutionary, if only his heart didn't burn quite so bright.

     And he still burned bright, that much was obvious even at a distance. Pete looked good, looked better than good. He'd grown into himself and wore his body well. His lanky limbs had lengthened into an easy grace, his pointed features aged into a handsome profile. He'd been diligent with his dance practice, that much was evident in his posture and poise. And the thief held his knife like it was part of him, as natural as breathing, as effortless as bleeding -- Mag remembered a small child fumbling with a blade, accidentally cutting himself over and over again on the edges, and felt a stirring of pride.

     And his reunion with the detective told Mag everything he needed to know about that relationship. Juno knew exactly where in the chaos Peter would be, didn't hesitate, wasn't thrown for a moment by the thief's sense of flair. And Peter knew exactly where to intercept his lady, met him halfway. No messy verbal communication, everything entirely seamless, like they'd practiced this a thousand times before. Step, step, turn, and then Peter stood with his partner armed and steady at his back, staring at Mag like he could light the air between them on fire with a gaze.

     Mag felt something bloom in his chest, and tried his best to tamp it down hard enough to focus on the task at hand.

     Juno Steel coughed across the room, shifting his shoulders and wincing at the long silence. "Hey, Nureyev? Not to backseat drive, but usually this is the point where you want to say something clever to break the tension."

     "Yeah," Peter muttered back, not taking his eyes off Mag, "I'm working on it."

     "I've got a couple ideas, if you need a springboard," the detective stage whispered back.

     "No, no, give me a second, I'm sure I'll come up with something."

     "Take all the time you need," Mag said graciously from across the room. Nureyev visibly suppressed a flinch at the man's familiar voice. "I've waited twenty years, another minute or two won't kill anybody. Unless you start throwing knives."

     "...Really?"

     Juno winced. "Hey, Nureyev? Are you sure you're not open to one-liner suggestions?"

     "You fix it, then!" Peter hissed.

     Juno shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "Well. Not if you ask like that."

     Across the room, Mag blinked and then broke into a hoarse laugh. "I approve of your partner, Pete. You chose well. He's scruffier than I expected, but he's very quick. No wonder you like him."

     "He cleans up nice," Nureyev replied smoothly. "But I'd have rather you left him out of this, whatever this is."

     Mag shrugged. "You can't tell me you'd have come if I just called."

     "What do you want?" Peter responded, every inch of him tense. "Why are you here?"

     "And why am I not dead?" Mag finished, lifting both eyebrows. "All good questions. Isn't it enough that I wanted to see you?"

     "No, honestly, it isn't."

     "Well, that's fair enough. I'm just here to talk." Mag settled back, feeling his chest ache and his gut twist from where the detective had landed a solid kick. "I nearly caught up with you back on Miothea, during the ballet, but you were too quick. Your technique has gotten so good, by the way. I'm glad you kept practicing."

     Nureyev faltered. "You were there?"

     "Of course. A dedicated parent never misses a dance recital."

     Juno blinked. "Wait, even _I_ heard about the theft of the Miothean Tiara. All of Hyperion was talking about it for a month. That was you?"

     "Oh, keep up, Juno," Nureyev snapped. "How many ballet dancing master thieves do you _think_ are in the game? Of course it was me."

     "And a very lovely job he did, too," Mag added, his face glowing with a strange pride. "A beautiful performance, and a flawless exit."

     Juno looked like he'd swallowed something bitter. "Don't tell that to Rita, or I'll lose a bet. She's the one who insisted _a ballerina did it_."

     "Don't feel too bad, a more subtle route  _was_ Plan B," Peter said, not turning. "Would have been my next step, if the audition had gone badly."

     Juno snorted. "Like you've ever had a bad audition for anything in your life."

     "Nerves do get the best of everybody sometimes, dear."

     Mag chuckled softly. "When Pete was nine, he--"

     " _MAGS_."

     "Wait, I actually wanna know where this one is going."

     " _NO_."

     "C'mon, Nureyev, what happened when you were nine?"

    Mag raised his eyebrows to heaven, a smug grin on his face that made Peter turn to him and snap, "Shut up."

     "I didn't say anything. And even if I did, isn't that what a parent is supposed to do, share embarrassing childhood stories with his son's spouse?"

     "You're not my --" Peter began, and then swallowed it back. 

     "Speaking of spouse....Have you two tied the knot yet?" Mag asked, dancing deftly around the point scored.

     "We're only married on the job," was the smooth reply. It was true, too: with the dangerous work Peter tended to take, it had become habit to make sure Juno had aliases with appropriate legal status to make medical decisions, enter restricted systems, and provide back-up without risking his own name. Juno hated them, mostly ignored them, and was profoundly grateful for them on the rare occasion they came in handy. 

     It was an arrangement that worked for them.

     "And how about children? I didn't see any record of any, but with the lives you two lead it's hardly a surprise if you'd keep them off the record."

     Juno made a sound like a frog just tried to jump out of his windpipe. They both ignored him.

     "Do you really think you raised me to a lifestyle that's all that conducive towards giving you grandchildren?" Peter snapped instead, his spine set perfectly straight.

     "That's for the best," Mag snipped back. "Kids will break your heart every time. And stab it, too, if they're feeling pernicious."

     "Don't do this, Mags. Don't start."

     Mag stiffened, something cold shifting behind his eyes. "You tried to murder me, Pete, I think I'm well within my rights to --"

     "You'd have murdered an entire city in cold blood if I didn't act!" Nureyev yelled back, breaking composure.

     "At least I work towards a greater cause!" Mag returned at equal volume. "You've betrayed every moral code I ever tried to teach you! You just kill and steal wherever it suits you, with no greater ambition at all!"

     "You built your moral codes on lies!" Peter stepped forward.

     "I committed my life to them! You couldn't commit to a story if your life depended on it!"

     " _It's not like you gave me much to work with_!"

     " _I gave you everything I had!_ " Mag was right in his son's face now, his cheeks red.

     " _And it was all lies_! You don't get to throw stones at me!"

     " _I was protecting you, and you stabbed me_!"

     "You tore my world apart -- I didn't have any choice!"

     "I knew you'd never agree to the plan on Brahma -- I needed to be the villain, so you wouldn't blame yourself! I never thought you would --"

     "Would what? Not handle it well?"

     Mag grabbed at Peter's collar, hand firm. " _Would turn on your own family_!"

    Two men face to face for the first time in two decades, family and blood and love and guilt all bubbled together, boiling to the surface, overflowing out over the stovetop, scalding everything it touched.

     Physical contact between them.

     A shot rang out, sudden and sharp.

     Peter spun, saw Juno's hand tight on the trigger, Juno's gaze distant. Mag frozen, mouth open, smelling the burnt hair from where the bolt had gone just slightly wide. 

     In that moment, nobody was sure if it was a warning shot or a miss.

\--x--

      _Freeze frame. Rewind._

\--x--

     Peter Nureyev had removed most of his scars.

     If he did a job badly enough to earn a new scar, it was nothing to be proud of. They were distinctive features and reminders of past failure, neither of which was appealing to a man in his line of work. Inconveniences, mostly, to be lasered off at the first opportunity.

     There was one on his collarbone, though, that he kept. It was jutting lump of bone rolling up under the skin, a break that had never healed properly. Not really visible as much as physically there, Peter could feel it if he went searching. Juno had found it one morning in bed, soft fingertips trailing, stopping, gentle, confused. 

     When Peter was six or seven he'd tried to sleep in the crook of a tree, rolled over, woken up in mid-air dreaming that he could fly. It had healed badly, he remembered weeks of trying to scrape by on the streets with an arm hanging limp and the pain shooting through his whole body if he shifted his posture badly. But it had healed, and he had kept himself alive.

     Had met Mag about a year later.

     He liked that scar, even if it ached when he danced. After Brahma, it had been a constant reminder: things may have been bad, but he'd lived through much worse on his own, so he could survive alone again.

     (He kept a scar on his hand, too, from a small laser burn. But that was another story.)

     Juno Steel, though, was a walking scar.

     Some scars had stories. Here, this one came when a car hit him during a foot chase along a crowded street. Here, this one came when a hired gun shot him. Here, this one came when an old friend smashed a bottle over his head in an especially chaotic bar fight (she'd later apologised, picked the glass from his hair with a set of tweezers, flicked it down the sink, all forgiven, in hindsight they both found it quite funny).

     But he couldn't say where most of them had come from. Burns and scalds on his arms and shoulders, badly healed cracked ribs, a nose broken too many times to count, countless scratches and deeper cuts. He didn't count them. Didn't care to. His body had been broken long before he left home, and there was no point in thinking too long about that.

     He wore the consequences for hesitation or failure on his skin, and that was how it was. 

     Peter knew better than to ask about the scars, but sometimes when Juno was sleeping he traced them with fingertips, with soft lips, with gentleness and tenderness. Silently breathed love into the lines that abuse had left behind, as though he could reach back into time and tend them better than anybody ever had, care for Juno in the way that the detective never quite believed he deserved. 

     Peter knew better than to scream, to slam things, to lash out in arguments, to give any sign that anything violent could occur. Knew to keep his distance, keep his composure as best he could. Knew Juno could get mean, had learned self-defence so young that "fight" had always been inextricable from "flight." Knew not to blame, but not to accept poor treatment, either. Knew Juno didn't know how to argue in a way that didn't feel like his physical safety was being threatened. Knew that was a work in progress, and maybe always would be.

     He knew better _._

\--x--

      _Freeze frame. Fast forward._

\--x--

     Mag lifted his hand from Peter's shoulder and raised it to the side of his head, feeling where a tuft of hair had been singed off by the blaster shot.

     All eyes turned to Juno.

     For a long moment, nobody spoke.

     The detective lowered his gun, jaw set.

     "You should wait in the car, dear," Peter said quietly. "We can be civil."

     "Not leaving," was the grunted reply.

     Peter looked back at Mag, his face impossible to read, and then turned away. Stepped towards Juno, his voice slipping into a soft whisper as his arm wound around the lady's waist, every inch of him reassuring and kind as he steered his partner to the door.

     Mag watched, curious and aching. Found, to his surprise, that he didn't want to yell anymore.

     The man across the room was a thief, a liar, a killer, a traitor to every cause Mag ever tried to install in him. That was all still true. His biggest fear had been that, in raising Peter Nureyev like he did, he had unleashed something terrible on the galaxy. That he'd created a person who was broken and hurting and cold and beyond repair. For two decades he'd worried that the damage he'd done had been more than his son could bear, and that the shifting and twisting of stories and skins, the many faces of Peter Nureyev, were nothing more than an attempt to keep that bright heart of his at bay.

     But no, that wasn't it.

     Peter Nureyev was doing just fine. He'd rebuilt himself so many times, but his compass still pointed north. Even through the smoke and mirrors.

     It was the best thing a parent could want for their child: for the balance of love in their lives to be greater than the damage their upbringing left them with. For them to grow beyond anything they had been raised to be, and create themselves into something entirely new despite the history they couldn't change.

      _We do our best for our children, and sometimes our best destroys them anyways_ , Mag thought. And then, _Pete grew up good, and I didn't have a damn thing to do with it._

   Mag found, with a dull pang of surprise, that he could be satisfied with that.

     When the door closed behind the detective and the thief turned back to Mag, the fight had left his shoulders, too.

     "You've always had a good heart," Mag said to him, the words leaving his lips before his brain could stop them. "It's a relief to know you didn't lose it along the way."

     It was the closest to absolution that father and son would ever get, and they both knew it.

     Peter lifted an acerbic eyebrow. "Next time you find yourself in town, please, do us all a favour and just call. My detective has to work in the morning, and he gets grouchy when he's been up half the night being kidnapped."

     Mag softened, looking his son up and down one last time. "I'll do that, then. Be safe, Pete. Take care."

     "You too, dad."

     And then Peter Nureyev turned and walked away, with his head held high and his knife sitting clean in the pocket of his coat.

\--x--

     The bar was small, clean, a hundred and thirty stories above the ground, dimly lit to allow the glow of the city skyscrapers outside the window to illuminate the space with enough competing colours that the lights ran clear, the edge of the atmosphere dome peering bright enough to touch. Peter knew it wasn't one of Juno's usual watering holes, and appreciated that most of all.

     "Congratulations, Nureyev," the detective said, sliding into the booth opposite Peter and sliding a drink across the table to him. "You survived your first ghost."

     "And hopefully my last." He lifted the glass, studied it briefly, and then clinked it against Juno's and took a slow sip. 

     Juno shook his head, his expression oddly wry. "That's not how being a person works. You got lucky, all these years, shedding your skin so often they couldn't find you. But normal folks, with names and families? They've got ghosts. If they're lucky, they even learn to live with them."

     "And if they're unlucky?"

     "The unlucky ones don't." The detective frowned, absently setting his drink down on the scarred tabletop. His eyes shifted, looking at something just over Peter's shoulder without really focusing on it.

     Nureyev took his partner's hand, and squeezed it just hard enough to tug him back to the present.

     Juno blinked, and squeezed back. 

     "You know, I don't think I believe in luck, anyways," Peter said, smoothly easing the conversation along. "I would rather not leave most things to chance. Ghosts included."

     "Really, Nureyev? And here I thought I was your lucky charm," the detective shot back, not missing a beat. "You'll break a lady's heart, throwing around empty flattery like that."

     "It's not empty, Juno. You create your own luck, instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. It's a valuable skill, and one I'm glad to have on my side." Peter gave a pause and a half smile, his face betraying both a sadness that he hadn't yet learned how to live with and an acceptance that maybe he never would. Not entirely, not completely, but maybe he could someday stop running from it all the same. "Thank you for not making me face that ghost alone."

\--x--

      _Freeze frame. Rewind._

_A young boy with his hair slicked back, wobbling at the ankles, his bandaged hands held over his head, his ballet shoes slipping against a worn studio floor, his arms trembling as his routine fell apart. A man sitting in a plastic chair in the hallway, waiting, his head bowed forward, eyes fixed on the floor._

_And then the door opened before being slammed shut hard, a nine year-old Peter Nureyev flying out of it. Mag lifted his head. "What happened in there?"_

_The child slipped from the room, face flushed with embarrassment and barely suppressed tears. "I ruined everything!"_

      _A warm voice, oaken and gentle, as a hand reached to the child's shoulder to offer comfort, "You can try again next time."_

_Peter shoved the hand away with a scowl, his chin lifted in determination. "I don't want a next time! I want to get it right my first try!"_

_"I know you do, and that's going to serve you so well, Pete. But listen to me." Mag knelt down on the ground, putting himself on eye level with the boy he'd taken in as a son. "There are very few things in this world that you can't do with enough patience, practice, and planning. You didn't fail today -- you learned a good lesson."_

_"But I did fail!"_

_"It's only failure if you never make it right. So. We practice. We plan. We wait patiently for a chance to come. And when it does....you walk in there with your head held high, you do better than your best, and you make sure they'll never forget your name. Promise me you'll do that."_

_"...I promise."_

    _"Good. I believe you." Mag stood once more. "I'm proud of you, Pete. There's nothing you could do that would ever change that."_

_"You're lying," Peter fired back, petulant and dramatic and his eyes burning so, so bright. "I could do all kinds of things that you wouldn't be proud of."_

_"I'm sure you could, but that would never change how I feel about you," was the reassurance offered, with a genuine smile. "I would never lie -- not about something as important as this. Now come on. Run through your routine again for me. I need to know that you know you can do it."_

_The two were the last to leave the studio that night, exiting arm in arm. Father and son, a dance bag slung over Mag's shoulder and ballet shoes laced around an exhausted Peter's neck._

_The music stopped as the door clicked shut behind them, and the studio went dark._


End file.
